And if you like the first two Chrestomanci books, make sure you read the last two as well. They're all great.

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Product Description

In this multiple parallel universes of the Twelve Related Worlds, only an enchanter with nine lives is powerful enough to control the rampant misuse of magic -- and to hold the title Chrestomanci...

There is a world in which the peaceful city-state of Caprona is threatened by the malevolent machinations of a mysterious enchanter...and another in which magic is outlawed and witches are still burned at the stake.

In two worlds the practice of magic has gone dangerously awry, there is only one solution -- call upon the Chrestomanci.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #54242 in Books
• Published on: 2001-01-31
• Released on: 2007-04-10
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 560 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780064472692
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Review
"Mad about Harry? Try Diana." -- -- U.S. News & World Report

About the Author
Diana Wynne Jones was raised in the village of Thaxted, in Essex, England. She has been a compulsive storyteller for as long as she can remember enjoying most ardently those tales dealing with witches, hobgoblins, and the like. Ms. Jones lives in Bristol, England, with her husband, a professor of English at Bristol University. They have three sons and two granddaughters. In Her Own Words...

"I decided to be a writer at the age of eight, but I did not receive any encouragement in this ambition until thirty years later. I think this ambition was fired-or perhaps exacerbated is a better word-by early marginal contacts with the Great, when we were evacuated to the English Lakes during the war. The house we were in had belonged to Ruskin's secretary and had also been the home of the children in the books of Arthur Ransome. One day, finding I had no paper to draw on, I stole from the attic a stack of exquisite flower-drawings, almost certainly by Ruskin himself, and proceeded to rub them out. I was punished for this. Soon after, we children offended Arthur Ransome by making a noise on the shore beside his houseboat. He complained. So likewise did Beatrix Potter, who lived nearby. It struck me then that the Great were remarkably touchy and unpleasant (even if, in Ruskin's case, it was posthumous), and I thought I would like to be the same, without the unpleasantness.

"I started writing children's books when we moved to a village in Essex where there were almost no books. The main activities there were hand-weaving, hand-making pottery, and singing madrigals, for none of which I had either taste or talent. So, in intervals between trying to haunt the church and sitting on roofs hoping to learn to fly, I wrote enormous epic adventure stories which I read to my sisters instead of the real books we did not have. This writing was stopped, though, when it was decided I must be coached to go to University. A local philosopher was engaged to teach me Greek and philosophy in exchange for a dollhouse (my family never did things normally), and I eventually got a place at Oxford.

"At this stage, despite attending lectures by J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis, I did not expect to be writing fantasy. But that was what I started to write when I was married and had children of my own. It was what they liked best. But small children do not allow you the use of your brain. They used to jump on my feet to stop me thinking. And I had not realized how much I needed to teach myself about writing. I took years to learn, and it was not until my youngest child began school that I was able to produce a book which a publisher did not send straight back.

"As soon as my books began to be published, they started coming true. Fantastic things that I thought I had made up keep happening to me. The most spectacular was Drowned Ammet. The first time I went on a boat after writing that book, an island grew up out of the sea and stranded us. This sort of thing, combined with the fact that I have a travel jinx, means that my life is never dull."

Diana Wynne Jones is the author of many highly praised books for young readers, as well as three plays for children and a novel for adults. She lives in Bristol, England, with her husband, a professor of English at Bristol University. They have three sons.

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Customer Reviews

I liked it, but...
Diana Wynne Jones is one of my favorite authors but I don't uniformly love everything she's written. I liked these two stories, but didn't love them. To me, that puts them at four stars.

There's a lot of fun stuff going on here. Magicians of Caprona has dueling Italian families, recalling Romeo and Juliet but with a much happier ending. It also has smart, capable kids and clever cats. Witch Week also features smart, capable kids plus nasty, real-life mean ones, too.

What I enjoy about DWJ's books (as opposed to the Harry Potter books, though I do enjoy those too) is that the kids are complex and they have good interplay with adults, if the adults deserve it (or at least appear to.)

Overall, though, these two stories were pretty light. I enjoyed them while I read them, but the characters and situations didn't stick around with me for very long, as opposed to the stories from Chrestomanci, volume one. Also, Chrestomanci hardly appeared at all! When he did he stole the scenes, but I like him more central to the story as he was in the earlier books.

Wizard!
When people think of wizards, they think of gray-bearded old men with pointy hats and staffs. But nothing could be further from Diana Wynne-Jones' Chrestomanci, a dapper English mage with nine lives and the responsibility of overseeing magic in ALL the worlds. "The Chronicles of Chrestomanci, Volume 2" compiles two of the books about this unique mage, "Witch Week" and "Magicians of Caprona".

"Witch Week" takes place in England, at a school called Larwood House that is reminiscent of English boarding schools in such books as Harry Potter -- but suspicion seethes in this one. In this world, witches are burned at the stake. And someone is a witch -- but who is it? Unpopular Nan? Silent Indian boy Nirupam? The identity of the witch (or witches) may change the world...

"The Magicians of Caprona" takes place in Italy, in the city of Caprona. Casa Montana and Casa Petrocchi are two Italian families of spellmakers, who have been feuding for a long time over an insult that neither family can really remember. But unknown to them, war and an evil enchanter are endangering Caprona. It falls to magically inept Tonini Montana and Angelina Petrocchi to save the day...

Long before there was Harry Potter, Diana Wynne-Jones was penning the funny, imaginative tales about Chrestomanci. "Magicians of Caprona" and "Witch Week" pretty much break the mold for fantasy wizards, choosing to be humorous and inventive instead of melodramatic and cheesy.

Don't expect fluffy fantasy. Jones's prose is amusing, dramatic, evocative and fast-paced. The intricate magical systems, where a single event can send an entire universe awry, are wonderfully portrayed and dramatically brought to our attention. And despite the Italian setting of "Caprona," the two books have a crisp, British flavor.

Her characters are likable ones. In "Caprona," there's a bit of goofiness in the generations-long feud. But the characters themselves are much like real people. And "Witch Week" captures, without a sense of cozy romance, the trials of being at a school where you're the unpopular kid -- there's a clique of popular students, and a larger number of unhappy, lonely ones.

Forget the antics of Harry Potter, and step into the magical stories of of Chrestomanci and his magical worlds. "The Chronicles of Chrestomanci, Volume 2" is a must-read for fantasy fans.

As good as the first!
Dianna Wynne Jones is awesome!! The second book is as good as the first. The Magicians of Caprona is an exciting story about two spell-making houses who broke up friendships and the security of Caprona. The second story, Witch Week, is about a world where witches are burned, althought this is not right. Can they fix it by themselves? No, they must call upon Chrestomanci. You have to read this book. Both are full of suspense and it will keep you on the edge of your seat from cover to cover! If you like Harry Potter you will love the Chronicles of Chrestomanci!!!!!! It has wonderful plots and well developed characters! This is a must read!!!